Written by

Jim Catalano

Correspondent

If You Go

Country legend Merle Haggard, who has scored dozens of Number One hits during his 51-year recording career, will perform at the State Theatre of Ithaca at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

As always, Haggard is touring with his band The Strangers, whose current lineup includes both his wife Theresa on vocals and his son Ben on guitar as well as pedal-steel guitarist Norm Hamlet, who has played with him for 41 years.

Recently, the 76-year-old Haggard took time for a phone interview from Illinois, where he was in the midst of another cross-country tour that hits the East Coast this week.

QUESTION: How do you like touring these days?

MERLE HAGGARD: Well, it’s the way we make a living. It’s what we do, and we’re out here doing it.

Q: Your son Ben did a great job on guitar at the 2010 GrassRoots Festival. He’s following in some big footsteps in your band, which always has had great players.

MH: He’s come along. He’s three years better now than he was then, and he’s doing a great job. I think I have the best band I’ve had with me right now. We have a great piano player from Texas, Floyd Domino. We’re short a horn man on this tour, but the rest is a great band.

Q: How do you approach your live shows?

MH: We’ve got a group of songs we’ve been doing. But it evolves, so the last time you saw us, it may not be the same songs you heard us do. But we don’t use a set list. We just go out there and do whatever we feel like doing.

Q: You’re known for taking an honest approach to your songwriting.

MH: I just go with what I feel, and if something strikes me as interesting, I try to write about it and make something that knocks me out. If it knocks me out, I hope it knocks other people out.

Q: Are you still writing many songs?

MH: I write a lot. I probably don’t write in the vein of success at the moment, with New Country being what it is. I’ve tried to get to handle on what they’re doing, but I can’t find anything to grab a hold of.

Q: Your life has been interesting enough for you to have already written two autobiographies. Have you thought about a third?

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MH: It’s always on the table. I don’t know if there’s a demand for it. But there might be.

Q: There have been rumors of a movie, as well.

MH: They’ve been trying to make a movie on me ever since I got famous. But I don’t know if it will ever get done in my lifetime, or ever, for that matter. But maybe it will.

Q: You’ve put out a variety of records in the past decade, everything from jazz to bluegrass to honky-tonk and gospel. Is it important for you and the band to keep growing as musicians?

MH: We try to. We always try to have a handle on what’s going on right now, and try to present some of the people with what they love to hear me do all the years. When we come to the stage, we have that in mind.

Q: You’ve lived in northern California near Redding for many years. What do you like about that part of the state?

MH: It’s not humid like the eastern half of the U.S. — it’s fresher, it’s cleaner. We’ve got strict laws that hopefully will prevent people from using the rivers for the wrong reasons. We’ve got the big redwoods and big trees. The whole West Coast is a different trip than out here. I grew up out there, and I guess I’ll always be close to it.

Q: Have you thought about your next album yet?

MH: We’ve got about five projects on the table right now. We just did a bluegrass album with Mac Wiseman, and we’re working on tribute albums to Bob Dylan and Ernest Tubb. We just finished a million-dollar studio out there, and we’re using it!

Q: You still seem enthusiastic about making music.

MH: I could retire, but it’s just not in the cards for me. As long as I’m able to get up and walk and play guitar and sing, I think I ought to go to the stage. It’s what I’m supposed to do.